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UK introduces spare bedroom tax

TONY EASTLEY: The UK government says its cuts to welfare payments will make the system fairer, but its critics say the measures belong in Stalinist Russia.

A raft of changes is coming into effect, the most controversial of which has been dubbed the "bedroom tax".

Europe correspondent Barbara Miller reports.

BARBARA MILLER: Having a spare room is a luxury the British government says the country can no longer afford.

From now on, anyone receiving housing benefit payments will have to move home or pay a subsidy for each room they have vacant.

The new measure will affect London woman Janet Cavalla.

JANET CAVALLA: I don't agree with it at all.

BARBARA MILLER: Why not?

JANET CAVALLA: Because I've got a two bedroom flat and my son's left home and he's sick and has to come back home. And he has to stay with me when he's sick and they're telling me I've got to pay... He's got cystic fibrosis. He has to have oxygen in a room without anyone else being in because it will affect him so I don't believe in it.

BARBARA MILLER: And you've been told that you're going to have to pay this?

JANET CAVALLA: Twenty pounds a week.

BARBARA MILLER: Can you afford that?

JANET CAVALLA: No, 'cause I'm a full-time carer for my parents and I only get so much- forty pounds a week anyway.

BARBARA MILLER: The bedroom tax is officially called the Spare Room Subsidy.

The government says it is a tough but fair measure.

Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith:

IAIN DUNCAN SMITH: We have a large number of people living in overcrowded accommodation which the last government did nothing about - that got worse. People sitting on a waiting list that doubled in the last government's tenure and yet people are being subsidised to live in houses where they have spare bedrooms.

Now if they want to, I'm simply saying, then they need to resolve that by paying more.

BARBARA MILLER: The spare room subsidy is one of a raft of measures being introduced which will see benefits capped and cut.

There is some popular support for the initiative.

Sean Hynes works full-time and owns two homes.

SEAN HYNES: There's a lot of people out there who are working and do full-time work and who are very concerned, and I'm glad the Conservatives are actually approaching it rather than just sweeping it under the carpets.

BARBARA MILLER: Do you think it's a growing problem of what is sometimes referred to as scrounging?

SEAN HYNES: There is an underbelly of culture there that people have come to say 'Well, you know, dad's done it or mum's done it'. I think there is a culture there. There is no two ways about it.

BARBARA MILLER: But critics say the bedroom tax simply can't work.

Liam Byrne is the opposition Labour party's spokesman on work and pensions.

LIAM BYRNE: There is nowhere for these people hit by the bedroom tax to move to. In fact, 97 per cent won't be able to move to another property because the properties simply aren't available for them. So what we actually need to do is start building more homes.

BARBARA MILLER: The opposition says the one and two-bedroom properties which are available could cost more in rent than the larger properties tenants are being forced out of.

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